MS Q INTERVIEW

Instantly Italy: You are a travel expert, so I’d love to talk to you about tourism. Based on your experience, can you suggest one thing people should absolutely do and one place people should absolutely see If they visit Italy just once in their life?

Ms Q: “I can not begin to answer this with only one thing or one place! Italy is a beautifully diverse country and there is so much to see and do in all of its regions. While I’m a city girl at heart and adore traipsing through Italy’s metropolises, I would argue that the small towns and villages most authentically deliver “Italianality”. My suggestion is that in whichever region or locale tourists find themselves, they should dig deeper than the local monuments and tourist-focused experiences. Find a residential area, seek out a restaurant filled with locals and eat/drink whatever they’re having. I remember being the only woman dining at a workingman’s osteria in Venice filled with local construction workers, and me trying to decipher the local dialect…as much as I swoon at the Grand Canal, that lunch was truly memorable. Italy’s regional foodways and ingredients is a natural entry point for me into how people live daily and how culture evolves. Right now I’m obsessed with the ways in which young Roman restaurateurs are leveling up, presenting traditional cucina romana in new and innovative preparations.”